Chapter Thirty-Seven of 'Starfall'- Wavering Desires
Chapter Thirty-Seven.
Title: Starfall (37/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny, past Draco/Astoria, Ron/Hermione
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, manipulation
Summary: When the truth about a seemingly minor Dark hex Harry has suffered leads to the dissolution of his marriage with Ginny, Harry spins into a downward spiral. His private consolation is creating a fantasy life for himself in his journal as Ethan Starfall, a normal wizard with a big family. When he receives a random owl Draco Malfoy has cast into the void as a plea for help with his son Scorpius, Harry replies-as Ethan. There’s no reason, he thinks, for an epistolary friendship with Draco to go further. But Draco might have different ideas about that.
Author’s Note: This is likely to be a long story, updated fairly regularly. It is, however, very angsty.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Seven-Wavering Desires
The next day, Harry woke up feeling as though he’d slept on silk. Well, maybe he had, if the sheets themselves were silken, but this went deeper and felt better. His limbs were warm and smooth and supple, and his head-
His head was clear.
It was surprising, and not just because he had drunk more wine last night than he had in a long time. Harry lay there, blinking and breathing. It felt as though clods of earth had fallen out of his ears and left him free to think for the first time in ages. He could see a sort of life he could have even without blood children.
He could see a family that might already exist and be his, if things worked out between him and Draco the way Draco wanted.
Be honest. You want it too.
Harry shrugged. Well, he did, but the person who would need to make the ultimate decision about whether Harry was welcome in the family or not-as opposed to simply welcome in the house-was Scorpius.
Harry got up and stretched for long minutes before he thought about the bathroom. It was as spectacular as the rest of the rooms, covered in tile but heated from below by what sounded like hot, gurgling water when Harry bent down and put an ear to the floor. Harry stepped into the shower and examined the patterns etched into the glass for a second before he turned on the water.
He ended up snorting. They were all of dragons.
Harry bathed with gusto and washed his hair with more vigor than he’d had in a long time. He wasn’t tearing through the shower so that he could go to work now. He was humming under his breath. He was enjoying the process of preparing to go downstairs and eat breakfast with someone, also more than he had in a long time.
Of course, in the past few years, he hadn’t eaten breakfast with anyone except Ron, the times they were out early or overnight on cases, and then they usually grabbed some cheap Muggle food and ate in between Apparating. Before that, the only person had been Ginny.
Even that had changed, Harry acknowledged after a few seconds of bowing his head under the shampoo and investigating the damp strands of hair with his fingers to make sure no dirt was hiding behind them. He could breathe easily now, without pain at the mere sound of her name. He wondered what Draco would say to that.
Then he remembered what Draco had said last night, and winced. Best not to bring up Ginny at all. If he did have a new life and he was moving on, he should do it without dragging in continual reminders of the past.
Of course, to an extent, that was also going to depend on Draco. He had seemed more interested in the end of Harry’s marriage than he should be, since he knew all about the main reason of Harry not being able to have children. He might sometimes ask about Ginny, and Harry would have to tell the truth. He couldn’t lie.
But, Harry thought, as he turned off the water, I also don’t have to make her a villain or the center of the most joyful part of my life before it all went to hell. Maybe I can move on and have other joyful parts, now.
*
“Uncle Harry is still here,” said Scorpius solemnly, when Harry came around the corner and sat down at their table.
Draco hid his smile behind his newspaper. He thought Scorpius’s amazement was cute, but Scorpius was in the sort of mood this morning where he didn’t want to be thought cute.
“Yes, I am,” said Harry, and picked up his fork and dug into the plate of sausages in front of him. Draco had had the house-elves bring it on a whim; it wasn’t his favorite, and Scorpius rarely ate more than a few. But from the way Harry was inhaling them, the sausages were something he enjoyed. Good. Draco would make sure to have them on a regular basis when he stayed over.
And after he moves in?
Draco rustled the newspaper to conceal his own discomfort, this time. He had no idea whether that would ever happen.
“Why did you stay?” Scorpius was currently asking. “I thought you would go back home.”
Draco winced a little. The last thing he wanted to do was make Harry feel unwelcome, and he knew Harry would be looking for signs of that from Scorpius, just because he couldn’t believe that someone would honestly want him in their home for good.
But Harry only said seriously, “I wanted to be with people. I spend a lot of time alone, you know. I live alone, and I can’t visit my friends all the time.”
Draco peeked around the paper. Harry held his eyes and nodded before he went back to eating. So the answer was sincere and for Draco’s benefit, as well as Scorpius’s. Draco eased back with a small smile. He could more than live with that. He could celebrate that.
“So you can spend time with me today,” Scorpius said, and swallowed porridge fast enough to make himself choke. Harry reached across the table and patted him on the back before a house-elf could show up to do it. Draco hid another smug smile. “I need to draw a map, and you can help me.”
“What kind of map?” Harry looked at Draco again this time, and Draco folded the paper and put it away.
“I thought it fitting that he should know the geography of the British wizarding world,” he said, and picked up his spoon to eat the last of the yogurt off it. “It’s the sort of thing he could learn at primary school, but I prefer to teach him myself.”
Harry’s eyes glowed with approval, and Scorpius interrupted impatiently, “I already know Hogwarts is in Scotland!”
Harry turned around with a small smile. “That’s great, Scorpius. I can only stay for about an hour, though. Then I’ve got to go to work.”
Draco swallowed his own disappointment. He had thought they would have Harry for longer than that. From the dismayed way Scorpius was pouting, he had thought the same thing, and he threw an imploring look at his father that Draco understood. It was a plea to make things work, and make Harry stay. Draco only shrugged back, and Scorpius faced Harry and pouted at him in turn.
“I really do have to,” Harry told him, and then reached out and put his hand on Scorpius’s shoulder. “But you’re so cute that it makes me want to stay.”
Scorpius pulled back and gave him a horrified look. “I am not cute!”
It was Harry’s first real stumble with Scorpius, and Draco watched in interest to see how he got out of it. But Harry just went on calmly chewing, and said a second later, after he’d swallowed, “I think you’re cute sometimes.”
“Cute is for girls,” said Scorpius. “And babies.”
“Sometimes,” said Harry, and went on eating again. Scorpius glared at him for a while, and then turned and gave a stiff little nod to Draco, not at all the way he usually asked to be excused from meals.
“Can I go practice with my map?” Scorpius asked. He shot Harry one more look, but Harry was involved with the Daily Prophet that Draco had discarded. Draco nodded, and Scorpius stood up and marched away from the table. Draco snorted to himself. Scorpius had never looked more Malfoy than right now, when he was the picture of offended dignity.
“I wondered what you would say to him when you realized how angry he was,” said Draco.
Harry grinned at him. “The same sort of thing I did to Teddy when I was only teasing him and he took it the wrong way. Let him snap at me and blow it off, and he’ll be all right in a few hours. At most,” he added, and put the paper down. “Teddy was older than Scorpius then, so Scorpius will probably have a lesser attention span. Did you notice the story they put on the fourth page?”
Draco blinked and shook his head. Most of the stories that were interesting to him were the sort to end up either on the front page or specifically in the section devoted to Quidditch, so he hadn’t gone looking even when he wanted to use it as a shield. Potter turned the Prophet around, looking grim, and folded the pages back so Draco could see.
Draco bent over. There was a photograph of an angry-looking woman standing on the steps in front of a small lawyer’s office whose services Draco had occasionally used, Merrythought, Merrythought, and Wiggs. She had a sign in her hand, although the wind was blowing in the photograph and it was difficult to make out what it said.
Underneath, though, the headline and its subtitle left no doubt.
HARRY POTTER USING CHILDREN IN UNHOLY RITES?
‘Just pay me in time with them’: a concerned grandmother’s fears
And then the story went on to say that Anne Quillona, who had gone to Harry for help in counseling her granddaughter, had not only got no help, but believed that Harry might want to spend time with children to influence their minds the wrong way, or perhaps to steal their magic or their body parts for use in Dark rituals.
“It isn’t the worst thing she could have said about me,” said Harry, and brushed his hand through his hair again. “Merlin knows that it was worse being Undesirable Number One. But it’s pretty bad.”
Draco read through the article this time, instead of skimming it. But the information was essentially the same. No proof and tons of shit, the very thing the Prophet liked to do best.
“So,” said Draco, going back to something that was more important to him. He looked again at the photograph. The woman was personally unfamiliar to him, but there was no chance he would forget that sneering, fuming face now. “The woman who spread the rumors about you and who you didn’t want me to take revenge on is named Anne Quillona, is she?”
Harry started and glared at him. “You’re not going to prank her.”
Draco sniffed. “Of course not.” Slytherins didn’t do pranks. They chose various methods of cunning and ruthless revenge, instead.
“Draco.” Harry grabbed his hand. “You aren’t going to do anything to her. Can’t you see that would only damage my reputation and my business further? It would mean that she could point a finger at someone close to me and say they wanted to destroy her for spreading the truth. And that would make people more likely to believe her.”
Draco looked pointedly at the fourth page of the Prophet. “And you think people don’t now?”
“Not many, or it would have been on the front page.” Harry shook his arm until Draco looked back at him. “Huggins-that’s the Head of Child Welfare for the Ministry, the one who gave me the information I needed to set up my business and told me there’s never been one like it before-said Quillona is a known troublemaker. Right now, no one’s listening to her in particular because she’s interesting but not that interesting. She will be if you make her a victim.” He hesitated. “And she has a granddaughter. I don’t want Justice to suffer because her grandmother gets poison in her food or something.”
“Justice,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. “Well, anyone can see why that family would be considered Light.”
Apparently Harry read something in his tone of voice that Draco may not have entirely meant, because he sat back with a cautiously relieved smile. “Then you won’t send a spell after her?”
“It would be more subtle than poison in her food,” Draco said. “No one would have to know it came from me.”
Harry’s smile faded. “That’s not the point. Quillona’s so bloody suspicious that she would decide it came from me, no matter what she suffered. I don’t want you and Scorpius to be under suspicion, but I also don’t want to suffer because Quillona has me in her sights again.”
Draco sighed faintly. On the one hand, the thought that Quillona might get away with spreading terrible rumors about Harry infuriated him. On the other hand, he could admire Harry’s new commitment to saving himself. “You finally decided that you aren’t willing to just let yourself slide into the gutter because someone else might benefit from it? You’ve decided you’re important enough to fight for?”
Harry squinted at him. “I was never going to let myself slide into the gutter. I protected myself when you set those warlocks on me.”
It was the first direct reference either of them had made to that since their conversation at Andromeda’s house after Draco had added his blood to the potion to save Teddy. Draco caught and held his breath, but he felt no explosion of anger in his stomach, and he doubted that Harry did either, from his mortified expression.
Draco shook his head when Harry tried to apologize, though. “No. It was going to happen sooner or later. And like I said, I’m glad you’re thinking ahead and you know the kinds of tactics that someone like Quillona might take to make you miserable.” He reached out and combed his fingers through Harry’s hair, watching as Harry’s eyes shut in startled pleasure. “Very glad,” he murmured. Then he dropped his hand and interlaced his fingers with Harry’s.
Harry flushed as though someone was going to come in and glare suspiciously at their joined hands. He kept holding Draco’s hand, though, while he looked at Quillona’s picture and his mouth became a thin, stubborn line again. “I know what she can do, and I know what I can do. Leave me to deal with her in my own way, all right?”
After a moment, Draco inclined his head. In truth, he did think that Harry would defend himself now, and not just lie back passively and take the accusation. His reluctance came mainly from the idea that Harry wouldn’t be able to come up with something that would stop Quillona in her tracks, only delay her a little while.
Harry beamed at him, his eyes gone soft. “Thank you,” he said, and then he pulled Draco almost flat across the table to kiss him.
It was pretty uncomfortable, with the edge of the table cutting into Draco’s stomach and his mouth mashed against Harry’s, but it was still hot enough to make him sweat. He pulled back only when he had to, when his breath was getting stoppered up in his throat, and looked Harry straight in the eye. Harry was flushed, too, and glanced aside as if Draco’s eyes were suns he couldn’t bear to meet.
“You can’t stay home from work for just a little while?” Draco asked, and curled his fingers around a piece of dangling black hair.
“Sorry, no,” said Harry, strangled, and he got up to go get his cloak.
“Then have fun at work,” said Draco, and he didn’t even have to work to inflect his voice the way he wanted.
Harry paused, his eyes darting up to meet Draco’s over his shoulder. Draco thought he had paused against his will. He smiled at Harry and picked up his teacup, blowing over it in a way it didn’t need, since it had gone almost cold.
But then, that was nothing a Warming Charm couldn’t cure.
Harry tore his gaze away at last, coughing, sounding as if he would strangle even when no one was touching him. Then he bolted for the front door. Draco called solicitously after him, “You didn’t leave anything up in the bedrooms, did you?”
“Don’t think so!” Harry yelled back. “See you later!” And then the front door slammed, to the audible and squeaking distress of Izzy.
Draco leaned back and laughed, because he could. Then he smiled. Harry had been so caught up in everything else that he hadn’t even objected when Draco referred to Malfoy Manor as Harry’s “home.” Well, that was fine, of course. Draco wanted Harry to feel comfortable here and come to consider it a place he could live.
But it was still amusing.
The face of the woman staring up through the photograph, lips set in what seemed to be a permanent pout, was less so. Draco did cast that Warming Charm on his tea, and then sat back and studied Quillona again. He agreed with Harry that any punishment right now would be premature, or returned twofold on Harry.
But he couldn’t help but think the name of Quillona familiar. Maybe not Anne, but the family. Didn’t he know something about them, something that might serve as a kind of insurance in case the trouble she made for Harry became worse than this?
A few minutes later, he was firecalling his father, lips set in a smirk that Harry might smack him for, but which he couldn’t take off his face. He wasn’t going to do anything with this information, not yet. He just wanted to confirm it.
And then he would have it to hand if they did need it. Not even Harry could object to that.
*
Harry arrived at his office to find owls loaded with Howlers swarming around it.
The instant they saw him, they detoured towards him, but Harry was already casting spells that spread around him in a half-dome, then another half-dome from the other side when the owls began to circle around in that direction. The dome hovered just above the ground, and moved with him like a big round shield. The owls hooted at him angrily. Harry was easily able to ignore that as he opened the door, though.
The owls couldn’t follow him inside because of the door-wards that engaged the moment they tried. They bounced back with shrieks that sounded human to Harry for a moment. But then he reminded himself that he had heard plenty of actual human screams in the war and while he was an Auror, and the cries became the cries of birds again.
When Harry sat down at his desk, the owls gathered on the windowsills, glaring at him. Harry muttered under his breath and hesitated. He knew what he wanted to do, but it was a spell that would at least get him a fine if someone detected it. He probably wouldn’t be hauled in front of the Wizengamot, though, or investigated by the Aurors. It was a spell classified Dark mostly by a former Minister who had liked owls more than people.
Harry tapped his wand on the edge of his desk and whispered the spell. “Ventus defendere.”
The wind traveled through the office, building up power as it circled the office, and Harry got up and opened the window. In an instant the owls tried to jump him, but the wind caught them and carried them all up into the corner between the wall and the ceiling. The shrieking birds were held prisoner while the wind grew invisible fingers and calmly and efficiently stripped them of their messages, Howlers included. Then the wind hurled the owls back through the window. Harry looked out and made sure that all the owls caught themselves by at least fluttering to other perches on the sides of buildings.
“See? Nothing actually happened to them,” Harry told the spirit of that dead Minister who had been sure that the spell would hurl owls to their deaths, and then closed the window.
When he turned around, the collection of Howlers was boiling towards him. Harry raised his eyebrow, chopped his wand straight downwards, and said, “Ventus ignis.”
The wind that had held the Howlers and other letters came rolling back, but this time, it was visible, made so by the flames riding its back. The flames were intense, but would burn only paper. Harry watched with satisfaction that bit him like teeth as the Howlers caught on fire, bursting like popcorn in a microwave, and the ordinary letters blew up and then settled burning on the floor. Harry cast Aguamenti, and then walked towards them, dismissing the burning wind, so he could look at the sodden remnants.
…always believed in you…
...never wanted to believe the Prophet, but this is the end of enough…
…only want the payment of spending time with the children? Why?
Harry stood back up. He couldn’t catch his breath. He paced back and forth for a moment, and then looked out the window again. There was only a single owl there right now, but others looked as though they were winging in to join it.
Was there no one who would write to support him?
A second later, Harry snorted. The ones who he knew personally, like Ron and Hermione-and Draco-would talk with him instead, and believe him anyway. And the ones who wanted to support him instead of squeal and whine would probably not bother with writing.
Harry closed his eyes. Any attack on Quillona probably would just bring forth something worse. That was true, particularly if he let Draco at the woman.
He doubted Quillona would get bored of the sport soon, either. And there would be a good supply of reporters at the Prophet who would want to listen to her and spin idle stories, from boredom or desire to claim a page near the front if they couldn’t get the leader.
So. He had a choice to make. Maybe it was one he should have made long since, because it would have let people understand his business better. But he hadn’t wanted to. It was his secret.
Harry shivered for a moment. Can’t I keep anything for myself? Can’t I have just one secret that Healer Brandeis or Draco or the general public doesn’t need to know about?
Maybe not. But, Harry thought as he opened his eyes, he didn’t need to be alone in bearing the brunt. He knew that Ron and Hermione would have helped him if he had confessed the secret of Ethan. He hadn’t wanted to, and perhaps it would have caused some strangeness between them for a little while, but they would have. He knew they would gradually get used to the notion of him dating Draco, which had to be stranger for them.
Andromeda and he could reconcile. Again, it would take time, but what lay hurting between them had nothing to do with his business or Draco and everything to do with one careless comment.
And Harry thought Draco would likely support him through this. If he was willing to date Harry at all-something that could expose him to a lot of public condemnation on its own-then he could live through this.
Harry sat up. Fine. He would make the choice that wouldn’t change him in the eyes of his friends and adopted family, and might actually, when this particular fire had burned, leave him with a chance to conduct his business uninterrupted.
He would tell the public that he couldn’t have children. And see what happened from there.
Chapter Thirty-Eight.
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